Orange dunes over ancient dry lake bed, Umm az-Zamul, United Arab Emirates

How much planning goes into these sorts of shots? How aware are you of what you’ll be shooting before you get up into the air?

One of the hardest things is that you can’t head out, especially into the desert, without leaving tracks [on the ground]. Sometimes… you might find out about a place because you drove by, you scouted it, you might have an idea that something would be good and you’d want to go out ahead of time, but in this case, you couldn’t. Your field time is usually quite limited so you have to try to do things only one time if you can.

You can try to guesstimate what things will look like in the air from the ground, but it’s always the find. That’s part of what’s great about aerial pictures is that, it’s like, “Wow, I never thought that would look like that.” Even with a trained eye it’s almost impossible to anticipate what things will look like from above. Once you get up in the air, it’s very clear. But it’s how you get that perspective, how you realize that perspective that is great.